Rolling coverage: Positive travellers wearing garbage bags for privacy not PPE
Returned travellers infected with coronavirus are wearing garbage bags on their heads to conceal their identity as they move hotels. It comes as alternative quarantine arrangements are explored.
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The Victorian government is “not excessively concerned” by two new local coronavirus cases, with the premier saying the state is “well-placed” to end lockdown on Wednesday.
However Victorians shouldn’t expect a return to the previous COVID-normal restrictions.
“Hopefully (we) see a continuation of the trend we’ve seen in the last few days and then we’ll have good news for Victoria and the strategy will have worked, but I do hasten that add that won’t mean we’ll go to no rules,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.
“We’ll still have to get tested.
“We’ll have to wear masks in a number of settings.
“There will be limits on the number of people who will come to your home.”
It comes as the government explores alternative quarantine arrangements for returned travellers.
The two new virus cases were recorded in household contacts of other positive cases, linked to a private dining function at 426 Sydney Road in Coburg.
Testing commander Jeroen Weimar said the two new cases had previous tested negative.
“We’ve picked up two new positive cases today but because they’re in our primary close contact network we’re not excessively concerned and that’s the pattern we want to see,” Mr Weimar said.
Premier Daniel Andrews said an announcement would be made closer to the time, but the state was tracking well to end lockdown as planned on Wednesday night.
LATEST: Wednesday’s rolling COVID coverage: Andrews announces end of lockdown, new restrictions
“We are well-placed to be able to make changes tomorrow night,” he said.
“We will get these rules off as quickly as we possibly can, as safely as we
possibly can.
“As I said yesterday, I’m not in a position to definitively commit to that, because these next 24 hours will, of course, be crucial.
“However, with a relatively small number of new cases, the excellent work that our contact tracing teams have done, the work of lab technicians and so many other people, we are very well placed, but we won’t know and we won’t be able to make a final call on that until some time tomorrow.”
Mr Weimar said 59 close contacts linked to the Holiday Inn hotel quarantine outbreak were isolating, while a further 499 hotel staff and residents were also isolating.
1189 primary close contacts linked to various exposure sites are currently isolating, with 1991 travellers who passed through terminal 4 and their close contacts also isolating.
NEW QUARANTINE ARRANGEMENTS CONSIDERED
Land near Avalon and Melbourne airport is being considered as new sites for purpose-built quarantine accomodation.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the plan is to adopt a model similar to the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs quarantine facility, with bespoke stand-alone cabins..
A further two cases have been confirmed in hotel quarantine.
Both cases of local transmission are close contacts of a previously confirmed case linked to the Holiday Inn cluster.
Nearly 24,000 tests were received on Monday. There are currently 25 active cases in Victoria.
PRIVACY PLEA AS HOT HOTEL EVACUATED
A coronavirus hot hotel is being evacuated on Tuesday after a sprinkler system was activated over the weekend, causing damage.
Thirty-one residents will be transferred from the Holiday Inn on Flinders Lane to the Pullman at Albert Park, a COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV) spokesperson confirmed.
Thirteen positive cases and 18 suspected symptomatic cases are among those being transferred.
Hotel quarantine commissioner Emma Cassar said residents were protecting their own privacy by wearing bin liners over their heads.
“We have really nervous residents who don’t want their privacy displayed on the news,” she said.
“It is really distressing for them.
“Our PPE requirements for guests leaving is a surgical mask and hand sanitiser.
“These are sick people need to be transported as quickly as we can.
“These will be really slow operations and every time we move one person, terminal cleaning, and then another person. It will take a lot of time.”
Mr Andrews also slammed reports bin liners were being worn by returned travellers instead of PPE.
“This stuff these people are wearing isn’t PPE,” he said.
“They have been given PPE and have it on.
“What they are doing is not wanting to be identified.
“It isn’t PPE but to protect their personal privacy. It isn’t about our decision. It is their decision.”
SECOND VIRUS VACCINE APPROVED IN AUSTRALIA
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in Australia.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration decided on Tuesday morning that the vaccine was safe and effective for adults aged over 18.
About 1.2 million AstraZeneca doses are due in Australia early next month, allowing the rollout to be expanded in combination with the Pfizer vaccine.
The approval initially only applies to the AstraZeneca vaccine produced overseas, with further checks needed to ensure doses produced by CSL in Melbourne meet the same quality and safety standards.
CSL will deliver 50 million doses this year, starting with one million doses per week from late March.
Under the terms of the TGA approval, the AstraZeneca vaccine will require two doses, with the second to be administered between four and 12 weeks after the first dose.
The TGA said elderly patients aged over 65 had demonstrated a “strong immune response” to the vaccine in clinical trials, but there was an insufficient number of participants to “conclusively determine the efficacy in this subgroup”.
“In this sub-population, efficacy has been inferred from immunogenicity data and efficacy demonstrated in the general population,” the TGA said.
“Reassuringly, there were no safety concerns in this age group in the clinical studies, nor in the large numbers of elderly people who have been vaccinated to date in overseas rollouts. The decision to immunise an elderly patient should be decided on a case-by-case basis with consideration of age, co-morbidities and their environment taking into account the benefits of vaccination and potential risks.”
“Residents at the Holiday Inn Melbourne on Flinders are being transferred to an alternate health hotel today (Tuesday), while repairs for water damage are completed,” the spokesperson said.
“Strict infection prevention and control (IPC) measures will be followed during the transfer to ensure the health and safety of residents, staff and the community.”
The spokesperson said the Pullman, which previously housed international arrivals for the Australian Open, had been assessed by experts to ensure suitable ventilation “to accommodate symptomatic and positive residents.”
All staff will also be transferred to the new site.
MORE EXPOSURE SITES ADDED IN BROADMEADOWS
A fruit shop and a bakery are the latest additions to Victoria’s growing list of public coronavirus exposure sites.
Sacca’s Fruit World and BonBon Bakery, both in Broadmeadows Central shopping centre, were added to the list of tier one exposure sites on Monday night.
A confirmed cases of COVID-19 visited the bakery from 12.30pm to 12.45pm on February 9 and the fruit shop from 12.30pm to 1pm.
The health department also added the west side of Broadmeadows Central shopping centre, the fresh fruit and meat section, as a tier three exposure site after the visit from the positive case.
Anyone who has visited a tier three exposure site should monitor for symptoms and get tested and isolate if they develop.
The health department also clarified the advice for Melbourne’s iconic Queen Victoria Market.
The confirmed case shopped at sheds A and B – also known as section two, fruit and vegetables – and used the female toilets next to shed A on February 11 between 8.25am and 10.10am.
Anyone who visited this section of the market during the same period is required to immediately isolate, get tested and remain isolated for 14 days.
WHAT COULD TRIGGER END OF LOCKDOWN
Three hospitals have been forced into lockdown as authorities refuse to rule out an extension to Victoria’s five-day circuit breaker shutdown.
Psychiatric units at The Alfred hospital, Broadmeadows Hospital and the Northern Hospital in Epping went into lockdown after a female employee returned a “weak positive” for coronavirus.
The woman and her three-year-old child, who has also tested positive, attended a family event on a Sydney Road, Coburg, with an infected hotel quarantine worker.
The woman subsequently returned both negative and weak positive results but was ultimately deemed a positive case out of caution.
The case was the state’s only new locally acquired case on Monday, and one new case inside hotel quarantine took Victoria’s active case count to 21.
Daniel Andrews said while the numbers were positive, it was too soon to say whether restrictions would be eased on Wednesday night as planned.
“However, I’ve never been one to try to make bold predictions, we just have to take this one hour at a time, one day at a time,” the Premier said.
“But I think this is a promising start, these last three days, and I am proud of all Victorians for the hard work that they’ve put in.”
Mr Andrews said he reserved the right to impose further restrictions based on public health advice.
“You have to assume, just like epidemiologists, public health experts and political leaders across the globe, you have to assume there are more cases out there than you know about because if you assume otherwise, and you are proven wrong, then there is no going back,” he said.
“There is no do-over, you don’t get to go: ‘Well, I just get to rewind these few weeks and make the decision officials told me to make, that I refuse to make.’”
The Premier refused to detail the public health advice that would ease restrictions, but said it wasn’t just about case numbers.
“The individual circumstances of each case have always been very important to us and they become even more important in circumstances like this,” he said.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said authorities were concerned about the infectiousness of the British strain, that was at least 34 per cent more infectious than the original strain.
“So there is an absolute need for a precautionary approach in that regard,” he said.
Both Mr Andrews and Prof Sutton said it was too soon to say whether or not students would be free to return to school this week.
Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said the lockdown made no sense if the government was confident in its contact tracing scheme.
“Victorians are sick and tired of the spin, sick and tired of being lied to, and sick and tired of knee jerk reactions,” he said.
PERTH DECLARED GREEN ZONE
Perth has been declared a green zone according to Victoria’s traffic light permit system.
The Department of Health updated its classification on Monday night for Perth, Peel and the south-west region of Western Australia.
The region had been under a five-day snap lockdown, which was lifted on February 5.
SUTTON DEFENDS SNAP LOCKDOWN
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the snap lockdown was not an over-reaction.
“Nobody wants this, nobody wants to go through this if it’s not required,” he said on ABC radio on Monday night.
“The alternative is what we’re needing to avoid, the alternative of out of control transmission, which would lead to restrictions and cases that persist for weeks and weeks if not months. So we have to be precautionary and we have to stamp it out. We’ve seen reactions that could have been called over-reactions across Australia and we don’t know how it might have gone had the reactions not occurred.”
Professor Sutton said it was “looking good” in terms of bringing the Holiday Inn outbreak to a halt.
But he said there was a “reasonable likelihood” of further cases.
“We’re hoping that all of those occur in people that have already been identified, already been quarantined and would not generate any further exposure sites, I think that’s the critical thing that we don’t want new cases to emerge and we hear that they’ve been to multiple public areas or gatherings.”
He said the reason Victoria’s public health team recommended putting the state into lockdown was because of the spread of the UK variant and how fast it was moving.
He said it was difficult to compare the response to New South Wales’ handling of the virus because their situation was different.
“They haven’t had a cluster emerge like this, they haven’t had a variant of concern out in the community,” he said.
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Originally published as Rolling coverage: Positive travellers wearing garbage bags for privacy not PPE
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